Young Tim Duncan and Young Kevin Garnett talk about The Mailman

 

Hilarious that Isiah Thomas was the one conducting the interview. (via @JazzBasketball1)

Here’s another bit on Garnett (before he was the KG he is now) and Karl Malone, also from 2000:

Kevin Garnett did not make a spectacle of it.

He merely met Karl Malone at midcourt, said what he had to say, then strolled away.The gist of what Garnett told Malone after the Minnesota Timberwolves played their most-recent game at the Delta Center was something like this: You are the game’s premier power forward, and you deserve to be leading the All-Star balloting at our position — not me.

No one told him to do it. No one had to.

Garnett knew what was right, and that is why he whispered what he did.

“The media was looking at me to really agree that there were better players other than Karl — better forwards in the game,” Garnett said Friday, almost a month after the largely overlooked gesture that speaks volumes as to what this three-time All-Star is all about. “I felt like that’s a guy that deserves respect. That’s a guy that demands respect. And it wouldn’t be right if I left the floor without saying what I said to him.”

Garnett finished first among Western Conference forwards in fan voting for today’s NBA All-Star Game, and he doesn’t feel it was right that Malone — the reigning NBA MVP, and a man who defined the position plays — finished only fifth in the balloting.

“That’s the thing: I’ve got more respect for Karl Malone than anything, and I wanted him to know that,” said Garnett, who will start today’s game while Malone comes off the bench as a reserve. “It had nothing to do with ego. It had nothing to do with personalities — or nothing. It’s just that I’m a different cat.” (DN)